[db-wg] Change of Country entries in the database

Daniel Karrenberg wrote:
> On 10.10 11:20, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> 
>>>Indeed, because of this reason, it might be good idea to obsolete
>>>"country:" attribute in the inetnums. What do you think about
>>>this?
>>
>>Please don't.  99.9% accurate info is better than 0% info.
> 
> 
> I agree with Hank. One has to clearly differentiate between *hard* info
> that needs as close to 100% accuracy as one can get, and *soft* info that
> is still useful even when full accuracy cannot be guaranteed. 
> 
> Examples of hard info are address space allocation and assignment chains.
> country: is an example of soft info.
> 
> Removing an attribute because its information is becoming too soft should
> only be done when the usefulness is much less than the current country:.

Perhaps we should make it optional then.  People who want to maintain the 
information can keep it up to date, and people who want to use the 
information will have greater certainty that if the attribute is there 
that it is correct.

Also, I suggest that it may make sense to make it list-valued.  Right now 
it is:

country:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]

So users who have networks in multiple countries and want to document have 
to do things like:

country:   NL
country:   BE
country:   DE

Or worse, things like:

country:   NL # BE DE

Allowing the use of:

country:  NL, BE, DE

Would solve this issue.

-- 
Shane Kerr
RIPE NCC